The hardest part about writing your book is making the decision to do it. The second hardest part for many is the self promotion required to sell that book.

Marketing yourself can feel uncomfortable and inauthentic. You worry about how your work will be received, and how your promotion will be as well. However, marketing is something you’ll need to master – and something you absolutely can.

For published and self-published authors alike, it’s imperative to start marketing well before your book is available – to build a recognizable brand and to build that suspense for your book. The marketing process starts around the same time you decide to endeavor to write your book.

Billy Coffey, Author of Snow Day, said “Whether fair or not, getting your story into the hands of the public now depends in large part upon your reach, and your reach depends in large part upon your savvy with blogs and social media. This can be a scary thing.” Indeed it can be terrifying for some, but I’m hoping to help make the process of marketing your book a bit easier for all of you.

This month, I’ve created a guide for all of my aspiring authors to help clarify where they’ll want to put their focus – to help them make sense of digital and social marketing.